Malaysian Journalist Adds Michelin Star

Here’s a vivid reminder of how busy life can be for a New York area restaurant owner. Although the letter alerting Nani Yusof Hughie (pictured) that her Flushing, Queens restaurant Mamak House had been awarded one star in the latest Michelin Guide arrived in late December, she only opened it January 18. Either way, not bad for a modest establishment that is still three months away from its first-year anniversary.

Hughie, a former full-time journalist with Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama, still freelances. Nevertheless, per a write-up in home country newspaper The Star, food is now her main focus:

“I am surprised and honored by the recognition as I am not a professional chef, and that includes my kitchen team. Furthermore, I am very new in this restaurant business,” she told Bernama via e-mail recently.

When Ligaya Mishan reviewed the restaurant last summer for the New York Times, the writer was particularly intrigued by a dish called Pasembur:

One of the more mystifying dishes I’ve eaten, a jumble of cucumber, shredded jicama, boiled potatoes, tofu, dried squid sambal, chunks of fried soft-shell crab and two kinds of shrimp fritters, one spongy and sweetened with coconut, the other salty and crunchy from a batter of rice flour. I found the sauce cloying but still marveled at its litany of ingredients: sweet potato, peanuts, yellow dal, dates and (the wild card) crumbled Maria Tea Time Biscuits.